On a recent Saturday afternoon, a dozen nannies and housecleaners, many of them immigrants from Brazil, gather with employers in a living room in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They snack on cheese and crackers, breaking the ice a bit before talking about talking and how to settle some of the troubles that can bubble up in domestic work.

As the country awaits two important Supreme Court decisions involving state laws on same-sex marriage, a small but consistent body of research suggests that laws that ban same-sex marriage — or approve it — can affect the mental health of gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans.